What is PetalBot? Huawei's AI crawler
PetalBot is the crawler for Petal Search, the search engine from Huawei.
46 of the 389 major websites we measure block PetalBot in robots.txt (12%), making it number 17 of the 30 AI crawlers we track for how often it is blocked. 43 of those sites name it directly in their robots.txt; the rest are covered by a wildcard rule.
Key facts
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Operator | Huawei |
| Used for | Petal Search |
| Type | Search index. Decides whether a site can appear in that product's AI search answers. |
| robots.txt token | PetalBot |
| Operator's documentation | Read it here |
What blocking PetalBot does
Blocking it mainly affects Petal Search, so it is a search decision more than an AI one.
How to allow or block PetalBot
Add one of these groups to the robots.txt file at the root of your domain. It is a stated preference that well-behaved crawlers read, not an enforcement mechanism.
User-agent: PetalBot Disallow: /
User-agent: PetalBot Allow: /
PetalBot user agent string
Huawei's page doesn't list a full string, so look for PetalBot in the user agent field of your logs.
How to verify a request is really PetalBot
Anyone can put a crawler's name in a user agent string, so the name alone proves nothing. We did not find a published IP list or reverse DNS rule from Huawei.
How to whitelist PetalBot in a firewall or CDN
robots.txt only states a preference. A firewall, CDN or bot protection service can still refuse the request, and the crawler then gets an error even though robots.txt allows it.
- Check that no group in your robots.txt blocks it, using the rule above.
- Add an allow rule in your firewall or CDN that matches the name in the user agent. Keep the rule narrow, because anyone can copy a name.
- Check your server logs for a 200 response from PetalBot afterwards.
On Cloudflare, also check AI Crawler and Agent access policies, which can block search, agent and training traffic across a site.
Why PetalBot gets a 403 or 405 error
A 403 means the server refused the request, which usually points to a firewall or bot rule. A 405 means the server refused the request's method, so check any rule that only permits certain methods. A crawler that obeys robots.txt won't request a page it is told to avoid, so an error in your logs points to your server's configuration. To stop it deliberately at the server, this nginx rule returns a 403:
if ($http_user_agent ~* "PetalBot") {
return 403;
}Which sites recently changed their rules for PetalBot?
None that lasted since 17 August 2026. See the full change log.
Who blocks PetalBot, by sector
| Sector | Sites measured | Blocking | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| News publishers | 44 | 20 | 45% |
| Technology media | 25 | 9 | 36% |
| Social and media platforms | 28 | 6 | 21% |
| Travel | 19 | 3 | 16% |
| E-commerce and retail | 19 | 2 | 11% |
| Reference and research | 25 | 2 | 8% |
| Health publishers | 16 | 1 | 6% |
| AI companies | 28 | 1 | 4% |
| SEO and marketing tools | 26 | 1 | 4% |
| Finance and business media | 29 | 1 | 3% |
| Developer references | 34 | 0 | 0% |
| Government and institutions | 19 | 0 | 0% |
| Hosting and infrastructure | 23 | 0 | 0% |
| SaaS platforms | 54 | 0 | 0% |
Sites blocking PetalBot
academia.edu, ai.meta.com, amazon.com, arstechnica.com, bbc.co.uk, bloomberg.com, cnn.com, cntraveler.com, corriere.it, digitaltrends.com, dw.com, economist.com, elpais.com, giphy.com, globeandmail.com, hackernoon.com, imdb.com, instacart.com, investopedia.com, lemonde.fr, lifehacker.com, mashable.com, nbcnews.com, netflix.com, newyorker.com, pinterest.com, quora.com, reddit.com, reuters.com, sciencedirect.com, spiegel.de, telegraph.co.uk, theatlantic.com, theguardian.com, theregister.com, thetimes.co.uk, theverge.com, travelandleisure.com, tripadvisor.com, usatoday.com, verywellhealth.com, vox.com, wired.com, wsj.com, yoast.com, zdnet.com.
Sites that allow PetalBot by name
barrons.com, disneyplus.com, dribbble.com, flickr.com, france24.com, hulu.com, marketwatch.com, pcmag.com.
See all 30 AI crawlers, the rule change log or the full study. Being reachable is only the first step: how AI search engines choose what to cite covers the rest.
Cite this data
You are welcome to quote or republish these figures. Please credit IndexHalo with a link to this page (CC BY 4.0). All our datasets are on the data page.
IndexHalo. "PetalBot block rate across major websites." Measured 3 November 2026. https://www.indexhalo.com/ai-crawlers/petalbot/
<a href="https://www.indexhalo.com/ai-crawlers/petalbot/">PetalBot block rate across major websites, IndexHalo</a>